Call for Papers - Early Career Workshop: Critical Perspectives on Global Law and the Environment

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together scholars at an early stage in their careers to support the development of research on critical perspectives on global law and the environment. The workshop will be hosted by the School of Law and Human Rights Centre, University of Essex and held entirely online.

The workshop calls for papers that use innovative or (broadly) alternative approaches to the study of the relationship between global law and the environment.

This includes, but is not limited to, perspectives that examine:

• North-South dimension of environmental issues, including from a TWAIL, and/or a critical race or post-colonial perspective;
• critical perspectives on human rights and the environment; 
• uses of interdisciplinary methodologies to explore the role of law and the environment;
• critical readings of the law in the Anthropocene/Capitlocene/Cthulecene;
• relationship between law, environment and capitalism;
• indigenous perspectives on the law and the environment;
• critical international, transnational and domestic environmental law scholarship;
• posthuman and new/neo materialist analyses of law and the environment;
• queer theory, gender theory, intersectional theory and the relationship between law and the environment;
• eco-centric and earth jurisprudence, including its limitations and critiques.
  
  We warmly welcome papers that explore such questions from an interdisciplinary, theoretical, empirical, and practical perspective. 
  
  Applicants and papers from all disciplines are encouraged to apply.

Workshop Format

The workshop will be held via video conference over 2 days, with 8 to 10 papers selected. 

The workshop will bring together early career academics (up to 5 years post-PhD) and (late-stage) PhD researchers. 

Each paper will receive comments and feedback from senior academic(s) as discussant(s), as well as other workshop participants who are expected to have read each other’s papers. 

Invited participants will be expected to:

• send a full paper (8000 words) unpublished and not currently under consideration for publication, by 1 April 2021;
• to read the papers of the other participants before the workshop and to engage actively in the discussion of the others’ papers.

The best papers presented at the workshop will be considered for a Symposium in the Asian Journal of International Law, subject to the journal’s review process and criteria of having a significant transnational or international component, in line with the journal’s focus.

Keynote Address

Professor Carmen G. Gonzalez, Morris I. Leibman, Professor of Law at Loyola University of Chicago, will deliver a keynote address on the topic of racial capitalism and global environmental law. Carmen Gonzalez (BA, Yale University and JD, Harvard Law School) is a world-renowned expert in international environmental law, human rights and the environment, environmental justice, and food security. Recent publications include International Environmental Law and the Global South (Cambridge University Press 2015) and Energy Justice: US and International Perspectives (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018). She previously taught at Seattle University School of Law.

Submission of Abstracts

Abstracts of no longer than 500 words must be sent for consideration by 1 December 2020.

To submit an abstract, please write to Dr Birsha Ohdedar, b.ohdedar@essex.ac.uk with the subject heading ‘Early Careers Workshop 2021’. Along with your abstract, please include name, affiliation/institution, stage of career (number of years post-PhD, or PhD stage).

Successful applicants will be notified in early January 2021.

Any questions can be directed to Dr Eliana Cusato: e.cusato@essex.ac.uk, Dr Emily Jones: e.jones@essex.ac.uk, Judith Bueno De Mesquita: jrbuen@essex.ac.uk, or Dr Birsha Ohdedar: b.ohdedar@essex.ac.uk.